The State of Disappointment

South Carolina Loves College Football, and This Year Hope Abounds; but History Isn't Kind

By

Darren Everson

Updated Sept. 16, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Practically everywhere there's college football, there's a strong correlation between the area's passion for the sport and the performance of its schools.

ENLARGE

South Carolina's Marcus Lattimore
Associated Press

Nebraska, Oklahoma and Alabama all adore the game, and their flagship schools are historical powers, even if their states aren't all packed with talent. On the other hand, New York, Kentucky and North Carolina tend to focus on other sports, and their schools' results reflect that.

Then there's South Carolina.

When it comes to college-football teams, there may be no state in America that has a worse passion-to-production ratio. The state has two major programs—Clemson, in the northwest corner of the state, and South Carolina, in the capital city of Columbia—that have famously committed fans. Both of the state's teams drew more than 70,000 fans per game last year. Only four other states had two such schools (Alabama, Florida, Michigan and Texas). The state of South Carolina has produced a litany of NFL players, like recent Pro Bowlers Shaun Ellis, Richard Seymour and John Abraham.

But nearly every year, all that potential goes for naught. Clemson, once one of college football's giants, last won the ACC in 1991. Even tiny Wake Forest, a basketball school, has won since then. Rival South Carolina has a far worse distinction: The Gamecocks are one of just two major-conference teams to never have played in the Rose, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta or Cotton bowls or reach the Elite Eight in men's basketball. The other is South Florida, which only began playing football in 1997. The Gamecocks have been at it since 1892.

"It's galling," says South Carolina author Pat Conroy, whose novels include "The Prince of Tides." "It's especially galling for Clemson fans, because there's an expectation of winning there. My brothers, who went to South Carolina, moaned their way through college. Just moaned and moaned. They suffered."

This season might actually be different, especially for South Carolina. The Gamecocks, who handily beat Georgia last week, are 2-0, ranked 13th and looking like a serious threat to unseat Florida in the Southeastern Conference's East Division. "Right now, I'd pick South Carolina," said former Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who's now a CBS analyst. Clemson's also 2-0 entering its first big test, a trip to No. 16 Auburn on Saturday.

ENLARGE

Clemson's Kyle Parker
Icon Sports Media

Nonetheless, even one great season can't erase the Palmetto State's history of pain, which can't easily be explained. South Carolina's primary disadvantage seems to be its population (4.6 million), which is half Georgia's and one-fourth Florida's and thus provides a smaller talent pool. Still, South Carolina is roughly the same size as Alabama, home to both Auburn and the defending national-champion Alabama Crimson Tide.

Coaches, analysts and recruiting experts say another major factor is the state's lagging education system. South Carolina ranked last among all states in the American Legislative Exchange Council's Report Card on American Education, released this month. Talented high-school players often fail to meet NCAA academic standards, and the state winds up producing fewer collegiate players than it should. Georgia churns out some 130 major-college-caliber recruits per year, says Miller Safrit, a recruiting analyst for Scout.com; South Carolina produces about 40.

"We just don't have the population, and then academically, we're near the bottom of the states," said Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. "There's as many good football players in this state per capita as anywhere, but there might only be 20 legit guys in a given year who can play at Clemson."

Clemson and South Carolina shouldn't be completely conflated. Clemson won the 1981 national championship and ruled the ACC until Florida State joined the conference in 1992. The program then slipped into mediocrity, due to two abrupt coaching changes and relatively substandard team facilities.

"When I got here, we had a metal locker room," said Mr. Swinney, who arrived as an assistant coach in 2003. Clemson has at least finished with a winning record the past 10 seasons, but, he said, "The expectation at Clemson isn't winning; it's competing for championships. My job is to get us over the hump."

Steve Spurrier's job as South Carolina coach, conversely, is to lift a school accustomed to failure. The Gamecocks have no national titles, one conference title—the 1969 ACC championship—and no SEC title-game appearances since joining the conference in 1992. And when they have success, fans wait for something to go wrong.

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In 1984, South Carolina started 9-0 and was ranked No. 2, yet somehow got blown out at 3-5-1 Navy. The past three years, the Gamecocks have been ranked in late October or early November, then collapsed. Recently, the NCAA—which has been investigating players at multiple schools for improper agent benefits—sent the school a letter of inquiry, and on Wednesday, tight end Weslye Saunders was dismissed from the team.

Gamecock fans even have an explanation for their misery: the Chicken Curse. "I originally wrote that as a joke to show the power of negative thinking," said Doug Nye, the former sports editor of the now-defunct Columbia Record who is credited with popularizing the term. "But nobody read the last paragraph."

There's a feeling in Columbia that the Gamecocks' fortunes are finally changing. The school's baseball team won this year's College World Series, the school's first national title in a men's sport. And Mr. Spurrier has a fearsome running back, freshman Marcus Lattimore.

But South Carolina has seen this movie before. "I keep thinking he's going to break his leg," says Mr. Conroy, "because of the Chicken Curse."

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